The people I find easiest to admire are those who concentrate all the courage and self-discipline they possess toward a single worthy goal: explorers, mountain climbers, ultramarathoners, military heroes, and very few scientists. Science is modern civilization’s highest achievement, but it has few heroes. Most is the felicitous result of bright minds at play. Tricksters of the arcane, devising clever experiments in the laboratory when in the mood, chroniclers of the elegant insight, travelers to seminars in Palo Alto and Heidelberg. For it is given unto you to be bright, and play is one of the most pleasurable of human activities, and all that is well and good; but for my own quite possibly perverse reasons I prefer those scientists who drive toward daunting goals with nerves steeled against failure and a readiness to accept pain, as much to test their own character as to participate in the scientific culture.
It is tough to know what is the right balance of grit vs. play in science or any other field for that matter.
I tend to think that the healthiest approach to self-discipline is to recognize that you don't have much. I'd suggest that the people who have the most self-discipline problems are those who believe that self-discipline is a strong force.
On the other hand, direction matters. If you are trying to resist something negative, probably best to avoid it as much as possible rather than trying to out-will it. But if you are trying to work toward something positive, then self-discipline is not a bad strategy because when you are pursuing something positive, it matters less if self-discipline occasionally fails (which is does and will) -- just re-group and try again later, no harm done. In that sense, I agree with E.O. that there are benefits to using grit toward positive goals like scientific achievement.
BUT I think it is really, really hard to stay focused toward a goal if there does not exist some element of curiosity / fun / enjoyment / play. That does not mean that everything you work on needs to be fun, but, on balance, your overall mental association with the project should be one that is enjoyable. At least that is the approach I take. I don't want to repeatedly spend my days on something that feels like a chore.
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One other quote from E.O.'s book that stuck with me (I think he was quoting someone else):
“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.”
